Policy Manual sample

MDT Home Health Care Agency, Inc. INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL ADDRESSING PRIORITIZED RISKS Purpose: To provide practical and effective steps to take to help reduce the risk of health care- associated infections (HAIs). Addressing prioritized risk: Risk assessment is the process where we: Identify hazards. Analyze or evaluate the risk associated with that hazard. Determine appropriate ways to eliminate or control the hazard. In practical terms, a risk assessment is a thorough look at patient’s environment to identify those procedures, processes, area maintenance that may cause harm, particularly spread infections. After identification is made, our staff will evaluate how likely and severe the risk is, and then decide what measures should be in place to effectively prevent or control the spread of infections. Ranking or prioritizing hazards is one way to help determine which hazard is the most serious and thus which hazard to control first. Procedure: Designate a committee to oversee the infection prevention and control program. This committee helps identify program priorities, guide activities, support best practices, and meet infection control standards and regulations. In our Agency is a frequent topic for the patient safety and quality committee as well as other groups responsible for patient care, employee health, the environment and emergency preparedness. Assess infection risks in the organization. This includes issues related to patients, staff, the environment, different care settings and special populations as well as potential emergencies. Also included are risks associated with the geographic location and the community environment of the organization. This assessment systematically identifies Infection Committee priorities for the organization. - In our community the more common issues are, but not limited to: * Respiratory Infections * Common and more dangerous flu * Pneumonia. -The population that we serve, internal Patient served by our Agency, the more common issues are, but not limited to: * UTI * Upper Respiratory Infections * Integumentary * GI * IV Sites Goals to decrease these identified risks: 1. Increase the flu, influenza vaccine rate in our patients and staff. (The flu shot reduces the Home Health Agency Nursing Care & Procedures K-88